Mary Lou MacDonald has been defending the indefensible - or Gerry Adams, as he's better known - for months now.

Chances are that the Sinn Fein deputy leader will need to do so again in the near future, as her boss's mouth still appears not to be on communicating terms with his brain.

No wonder Mary Lou decided that enough was enough, and that it was about time for colleagues in SF to start coming out to bat for her too. All week they've been loyally popping up on the airwaves to insist that the party's deputy leader was entirely correct last December to use the sanctuary of the Dail to name those she accused of having offshore Ansbacher accounts, despite her actions being censured last week as a breach of the rules by the Oireachtas Committee on Procedures and Privilege.

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